


Verona's Ache

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-01-05 11:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21207563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: Soulmate AU in which the bond is not activated until you come into physical contact with your soulmate -- but once you do, you're in physical discomfort whenever you're not with them. As you might imagine, this can create complications.





	1. Chapter 1

Alex lay on the gurney in the medbay of the DEO bunker. She was aching all over. Scratched, bruised, with a tear in the leg of her blacks and what felt like a number of sprains and bruises. Kara could get thrown into a wall without getting banged up. Alex, not so much. 

She groaned, staring up into the lights. “So that was your aunt, huh?” 

Kara was hovering over her, looking worried. “Yeah.” 

“She’s kinda hot, but she’s a little aggressive.” Even injured, Alex’s sense of humor was intact.

“Idiot,” Kara laughed, but Alex could see her worry. Alex could also see the twitchy anxiousness, the little light sweat on her forehead, that betrayed her sister’s physical discomfort. 

“I’m fine,” Alex assured her. “Go home to Cat.” 

Kara sighed. “You’re not fine.” 

Alex gestured around with her less-injured arm. “Look, there’s lights, and screens, and beepy things, and Dr. Liu is going to give me the good drugs.” She smiled wearily at her sister. “Drugs don’t fix your problem.” 

Kara sighed, looking relieved. “Okay, I’ll call and check on you later.”

Kara had bonded with her human soulmate, Cat Grant, after nearly six months on the job. It had taken that long because Cat was a germophobe and rarely touched anyone. She hadn’t even shaken Kara’s hand at the interview. It had to be some kind of record for how long two soulmates could be in the same workplace, working together one on one, and not discovering their bond. But since it had snapped into place after an errant hand on Kara’s shoulder, they had structured their lives to be with each other as much as physically possible, moving in with each other almost immediately. It was the only way to keep the Ache at bay.

Alex, for her own part, had been in love a couple of times, or so she thought, and dated a few people, but hadn’t found her own soulmate. After all, not everyone did. One in four, the statistics said. Just as well, she reassured herself. Cat and Kara worked out, more or less, but the physical discomfort that came from being separated from one’s soulmate seemed terribly restrictive. Alex hated that Kara was always fighting battles under a perpetual cloud of pain, even if Kara said she had gotten used to it and that it made her stronger.

And then Dr. Liu came over to her bedside, connected a drip to the IV needle in her arm, and Alex fell asleep. 

  
  


****

“Hairline fracture in the left arm,” Liu announced when she came around. “Mild concussion. Most of the rest is just scrapes and bangs.” Alex looked down at her left arm, which was in a hard cast. She held it up. “How long have I got this?” 

“Six to eight weeks.” 

She closed her eyes. 

“Hey, at least it wasn’t your right hand.” 

“It’s not that.” Her body was still throbbing, and she felt a tingling in her chest not unlike the one that comes in one’s extremities when the blood has been cut off for too long. “I’m just… ugh… I still hurt all over.” 

“Hm,” Liu responded, seeming mildly surprised. “Well, you should feel more or less normal in a few days. You’ll have to take it easy on that arm. No sparring, Agent,” she added sternly, knowing Alex well enough to know she’d try to if she wasn’t told otherwise.

Alex grunted, and tried to fall back to sleep.   
  


*****

  
  


In Fort Rozz, Astra stared at the glowing sliver of green mineral that her scientist had plucked from her flesh. It had been left there by the human, wielding a knife made of it, and it had pierced her in a way that she had not expected. 

“What is it?” she whispered. 

The scientist sighed. “A tiny fragment of your homeworld, I think.”

Her stomach turned over. “Why does it make me vulnerable?” 

He gestured vaguely. “I’ll need to examine it. Let me give you a sedative in the meantime, so that you can sleep off the damage.” 

It surprised her that such a small knife wound would leave her aching from head to toe, but if this substance was in fact toxic, who knew what it might do? She closed her eyes as the scientist gave her an inhalant which didn’t seem to ease her pain so much as simply knock her out. She fell asleep on the hard table in the medical bay, not even caring how uncomfortable it was.

Her dreaming replayed the incident: the slender human with the dark, fierce eyes, who protected her niece, Kara, with the intensity of a lioness looking after a cub. The human had defeated her Hellgrammite, a rough brute whose strength was matched only by his willingness to devour anything that didn’t cooperate. She had been sprawled out, the human, on the blacktop in the damp dark. Astra had found her strangely magnetic; not at all what she would expect of a human. She thought of them as soft and dull, and this one was neither. She was hard as a diamond, and as sharp as one too.

In fascination, Astra had approached her, and forgetting the adage that a cornered animal was often the most dangerous, she reached out and stroked the human’s cheek. She couldn’t say why, even in the moment. Curiosity, perhaps? Admiration? She wanted to know what a human felt like. And the human had held still for a moment, and then sprang upon her, producing the knife seemingly from nowhere, and plunging it into her shoulder. 

The surprise of being wounded by anything at all caught Astra off guard. Her skin had never been pierced in the ten years since she’d been on Earth. Pain had become a stranger to her. Stoicism deserted her, and she fell back, the human on top of her, trying to pin her down. 

“I don’t want to kill you,” the human grunted, “I just want you to cooperate with me!” 

It was a struggle unlike any Astra had had in a long time. The human was an adept fighter. They rolled over and over on the pavement, sprang to their feet, came at one another again. Astra almost didn’t want to hurt the human, wanted to reward her bravery: after all, she had knocked down one of the toughest in her cohort and not only lived to tell about it but came up ready to fight some more. 

But her superhuman strength seemed to have deserted her, thanks to the strange glowing knife in the human’s hand, and when she was struck with it a second time, she was suddenly on the defensive. Only the fact that Non had come crashing down through the skylights and swept her up and away kept things from getting worse. 

She awoke several hours later, still in pain. It was a different pain than before, no longer laced with nausea, but still persistent, a deep, itchy, tingling ache. She hated it. 

The scientist was beside her, and so was her husband. 

“Non,” she whispered. 

“Are you well, General?”

She took a long, slow breath before answering. “I am… improved.” 

She saw the relief in his face. She was skeptical that it was born of loving concern, but rather suspected that he despised being in charge during her incapacitation. The cohort didn’t love him they way they loved her. “I am glad to hear it. The men await your glorious return.” 

She scoffed quietly to herself and sat up. She could feel that her powers had returned; that well of warmth behind her eyes that told her she could melt metal with them if she felt like it. “Call them to order. I will address them in one hour.” 

Non nodded and left the bay. She looked at the scientist. “I can feel that my powers have returned, but I am still in pain.” 

He frowned. “I cannot offer any explanation. The pain should have subsided once the substance was removed from your body and the wound sealed up.” 

Containing a burst of churlishness, she ordered him to give her a painkiller, and collected herself to address her people.

  
  


*****

  
  


Alex’s sleep over the next 24 hours was pure garbage. The painkillers didn’t seem to do anything, and Liu wasn’t about to graduate her to anything stronger. “Dilaudid is for people who have an organ falling out or something,” she scolded. “You shouldn’t need it for a hairline fracture.” 

She frowned a little, looking at Alex’s charts. 

“Can you describe the discomfort?” 

Alex sighed. “Ugh, I don’t know. It’s a tingly, achey, heat…” She gestured vaguely. “It’s kind of all over, but it’s worst, like…” She placed her hands over her sternum. “My ribcage, in general, I think? And especially here?” 

Liu started chuckling. “I don’t know, Alex. I don’t know if you want to hear this or not, but… it’s might be Verona’s.” 

Alex’s brows drew together and she stared at the doctor as if she were insane. “What?” 

Liu nodded. “That’s a very typical manifestation of it. Didn’t Kara ever describe it when she first got it?” 

Alex thought. She remembered Kara showing up at her door, sweating and looking worn out in a way she almost never did. She collapsed against Alex the second Alex opened the door, and then sat in a ball on the couch, whimpering for a while. She hadn’t gotten very specific about what the pain felt like. She just kept sighing, “It hurts.” 

Alex hadn’t wanted her to go to work the next day, but Kara was insistent that she couldn’t let Cat down. Only a few hours later, when Alex got the phone call from her, had she understood.

“Alex,” she whispered into the phone, “I think I know what’s wrong with me.” 

“Huh?” 

“As soon as Cat showed up everything stopped hurting.” 

All that Alex could think to say at the moment was, “Oh, shit.” 

And so it was at this moment as well.

Dr. Liu chuckled. “Any idea who it could be?” 

Alex shook her head. She hadn’t felt this way before they’d run into Astra and her goons. The only ones she had actually touched were the two she’d fought: Kara’s aunt, and the guy with the scary jaw that opened the wrong way. “Any new medical staff who might have touched me while I was unconscious?” 

“No. And if it were a member of the medical staff, they’d likely be hovering in here all night and day.” 

Alex frowned again. “Well, there were the two aliens… the one that got away, and the guy who’s cooling out in the cell downstairs.” 

“OK. Well, let’s bring you down there and see if it gets any better.” 

Alex muttered something under her breath that, had her mother been there to hear it, would have earned her a sharp look. “Let’s go.”   
  


*******

Two days after returning to Fort Rozz, Astra found herself still in constant pain. She was stoic, and her husband did not notice anything wrong. She had asked the scientist to keep the knowledge of her persistent pain to himself. The crew loved her, but they were criminals, and most of them were scum, and if they sensed a weakness, that love might turn on her just as easily as she had won it in the first place. Ever cautious, the general knew her people. 

She left her husband in charge and decided to go out on what she told him was “recon” but was an effort to make sense of her pain. Her scientist couldn’t figure out why the knife had such lingering effects; perhaps, she reasoned, the human could provide some clues. 

Astra took to the air, breathing in the immense freedom of the sky, and for a moment, almost forgot her discomfort. But then she looked out across the expanse of desert and could see National City, tiny and sparkling, its great glass-rod buildings smaller than her pinky at this distance. Her niece was there. And so was the human. The ache asserted itself again, and she flew toward its twinkling lights. 

  
  


*******

  
  


Alex stood in front of the alien tough’s cell, gazing at him disdainfully through the plexi as he slumbered. 

“I don’t feel any better,” she announced after a moment, “and now I’ve also spent two whole minutes looking at his ugly face.” 

The doctor snorted. “Well, this is science, Alex. You know that. We have to remove variables.” 

Alex sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s just we can’t test the other variable that I can think of.” 

“Well, this is Arkham’s Razor. You’ve got symptoms of Verona’s Ache, and the only two new elements that you’ve made physical contact with prior to experiencing it are this guy and the general, so if it’s not him…” 

Alex shook her head. “Are you sure it’s Verona’s? Isn’t there anything else it could be?” 

Dr. Liu chuckled. “Well, not unless you’re having a heart attack, an aneurysm and a mild seizure at the same time, but I think we’d notice if that was happening.” 

“This sucks.” 

Liu patted her on the back, and then took her elbow and escorted her from the room. “Look, J’onn called Kara, she and Cat are outside in the chopper, they’re gonna take you home and hopefully, you can sleep a little.” 

“Thanks.” They walked in silence for a moment towards the corridor that led to the helipad. “Hey Doc?” 

“Hm?” 

“What… what exactly do people do if they… you know… if their soulmate isn’t someone they can be with?” 

Liu shrugged. “I don’t know if that really happens. I mean, being in constant pain without a particular person’s presence has a way of motivating folks to work that stuff out.” 

“Ugh. Great.” 

  
  


******

  
  


Astra noticed that as she neared the city, her discomfort had decreased noticeably. She was still hurting, but it had lessened. She thought perhaps whatever her malady was that it had passed, and that perhaps she should turn back and return to Fort Rozz. But something in her still tugged toward the city. She still had questions. 

She extended her hearing, tried to listen for the heartbeat of that particular human. Non and the others would never be able to do this, she mused, locate a particular human by the sound of their heartbeat, since they could not be bothered to listen to the humans’ hearts. But Astra always did, curious at the unique rhythms that each produced, the little frequency variations, the curious whistling sound the blood might make as it rushed through one’s valves, but not another’s. The human had wounded her. She would never forget the sound of the heart that had accomplished that. 

She listened now, as she approached the rooftops in the outskirts of the city, where the buildings were lower and its denizens a bit less well to do. She picked out, with great care, the tones of the human’s heartbeat, and followed them. It was a strong heart, its rhythms even, the alternating of its high and low frequencies so recognizable that Astra was able to home in on it immediately. 

As soon as she had done so, her pain again seemed to alleviate ever so slightly. Perhaps this was psychological. But perhaps it was not. 

  
  


**** 

  
  


Alex sat on her couch, a blanket that she wasn’t even sure she wanted wrapped around her shoulders. Kara was hugging her, while Cat was setting up a little array of things she might want or need within arm’s reach. 

Liu had apprised them of the situation, that this was probably a case of Verona’s, and Cat, having been through it relatively recently, was her usual proactive self: pitcher of ice water, thermos of hot water, assortment of teabags, teacups. Ice packs. Baby wipes. An assortment of sensory items which could be used to distract oneself from the discomfort: sour patch candies, very strong mints, two different kinds of incense and a lighter, a little bowl with some frozen oranges which she recommended picking up and peeling if she was feeling especially twitchy and squirmy. Painkillers, of course, didn’t work.

Alex leaned back wearily, her knees pulled up to her chest. “Thanks, Cat.” 

“Of course.” She was matter of fact. She had accepted that Alex was part of her family, an extension of the soul union that she shared with Kara, and as such, she would be involved in her care. 

Alex looked at Kara’s eyes, which were brimming with an odd sort of emotion, concern and relief both etched in their blue irises. “You’ll find each other soon,” she assured her, “and then you won’t hurt anymore.” 

Alex felt guilty. She hadn’t told Kara that she suspected that the source of her Ache was none other than the great and terrible General Astra. She didn’t know how. She still hoped and prayed that there had been someone somewhere, that she had touched by accident, and that it might turn out to be them. 

She leaned forward, deciding that her sweats at the moment called for the ice water, and told them, “I’ll be okay. You guys don’t have to hang out. I’ll try to rest and call you in the morning.” 

Cat leaned over to Kara and asked softly, “Do you think we should stick her in the limo and have Frederick drive us around? Maybe it will get better if we head in the right direction?” 

Alex shook her head. “No, Cat, it’s ok. I’m just tired and I want to rest. Maybe we can try tomorrow.” She looked between both of them. “Was it this bad for you guys? I really feel like I’m gonna die of something right now.” 

Cat smiled wryly. “Well, yes. After about a day, you’ll get used to it and you’ll be a little more up for searching for Mr. or Ms. Right.” 

She watched them leave, shutting the door behind them, and laid her head back, sipping from the cold water. She felt around for the remote, turned on the television, and let whatever was on it babble away in the background. 

  
  


******

  
  


Astra was hovering over a modest building in what seemed like a decent part of town. She touched down on the roof, and listened. It was there, the human’s heartbeat. She was sure this was the right place. And then she heard Kara’s voice, speaking to another human: 

“I think she knows who it is and just doesn’t want to tell me.” 

“Darling, you can’t make her, you know. We’ll find out soon enough.” 

“I just want to help. I don’t understand why she won’t tell me.” 

“Perhaps it’s someone embarrassing. I mean, God, what if it’s that little hobbit from CatCo? I’d be embarrassed about that.” 

“Cat, his name is Winn, and he has a soulmate already.” 

“And are they embarrassed?” 

Astra leaned over the side and saw Kara and a small, twig-thin blonde getting into a long, black vehicle with shiny black windows. Kara and the human were connected somehow, but perhaps it was not coincidence that she felt better in her niece’s presence. She elected to follow them. She would stick to the rooftops. They would not even notice. 

Two blocks down, she leapt into the air, a quiet black shadow sailing to a rooftop further down. The instant she landed, she felt the discomfort surge again, that hot tingling ache in her chest, fingers and toes. Determined, she waited there for a moment, watched the car hook around a left turn a few blocks up, and took to the air again. 

This time, she had not even landed before the felt the intensity of the pain increase. 

She still kept half an ear to Kara’s conversation:

“I just hate that she’s in so much pain and there’s nothing I can do.”

_ Interesting. _

Astra decided to operate under the simple, primitive premise that if it hurt, that it was wrong. As her pain was increasing in this direction, she leapt back into the dark sky, and returned herself to the rooftop of the building that Kara had come out of. The discomfort abated again.

She listened again for the human’s heart. She heard it, its beat strong and full of… Astra stopped herself. Perhaps she should not make too many assumptions. 

Lightly, she stepped over the edge of the roof, listening for the source. She followed around cautiously to the other side, then narrowed it down to the second floor. She drifted near to the window, and looked in. 

The human was on her sofa, half-clothed, half-wrapped in a blanket, staring at a screen and listlessly drinking something from a ceramic cup. She certainly didn’t look like much of a threat. Then again, Astra thought ruefully, she hadn’t looked like much of one before, either. 

She watched, as the human seemed to suddenly realize something, and she stood up, glanced around, and then performed what appeared to be a few experimental stretches in her undergarments and a thin sweater. A look of relief seemed to cross her weary-looking face. Astra smiled without quite knowing why. 

She saw the human look toward the window, frowning. Astra’s heart seized for a moment. 

She’d had no plan. All she knew was that she had followed the sound to its source and her pain had stopped. But now the human was walking toward the window and Astra both did not want to be seen, and did not want to fly away and plunge herself back into the same pain that she had felt relentlessly for the last three days. She froze, hanging in midair outside the window as the human marched toward it, threw open the sash, and stared at her.

“Shit,” the human said, looking put-upon but not entirely surprised.

“Please do not stab me again,” was all Astra could think to say. 

The human sighed heavily, looking at her with the same exhaustion Astra felt. “You’ve been hurting since we fought, right?”

Astra nodded. 

“Me too. Couldn’t figure out why.” 

“I thought it was your knife, but it became clear that that was not the cause.” 

The human shook her head. “Last time we saw each other, we tried to kill each other.” 

“It was a good fight,” Astra remarked. 

The human gave a knowing smile. “It was.” She looked her over appraisingly, and then seemed to realize that she was not quite dressed for company. “Anyway, I shouldn’t be standing in front of the window like this, and somebody’s gonna notice a lady floating outside my window if you stay there much longer, so…” She gestured with resignation. “It’s nice to get a break from the pain. Come on in, and uh, you know. Let’s not kill each other, and maybe see how that goes .” 

  
  


*********

  
  


Alex had not really had a lot of practice with diplomacy, which was, for all intents, what this was. A negotiation between previously hostile parties to reach a detente favorable to both. She had never dreamt that when she did conduct diplomacy, that she would be doing so in her underwear. 

She sat on the couch again, pulled the blanket across her lap, and offered the general some tea. The general graciously declined, opting instead for one of the still half frozen oranges. Before Alex could explain anything about them, Astra bit into it. A look of disgust crossed her face. Alex showed mercy and, rather than watch her struggle through it, pointed to a roll of paper towels in the kitchen area and said, “You can spit it into a paper towel.” 

After she’d done so, Astra remarked, “I did not expect it to be that bitter.” 

Alex smiled. “You’re supposed to peel it first. The inside is very good.” 

But Astra had had her moment with oranges and decided that she would like a glass of water and nothing else. 

They sat for a while, drinking quietly and looking at one another, trying to take each other’s full measure. Alex had turned off the television. Somehow quiet seemed best right now. The relief of no longer being in pain was settling in, and she just wanted a space to cocoon in. Astra seemed happy enough with this. 

Finally, Astra spoke. “You did not seem surprised to see me.” 

Alex sighed. “I wasn’t. I was hoping it wouldn’t turn out to be you, but I had a feeling.”

Astra didn’t understand. “It, what do you mean, it?” 

Alex looked at her, surprised. “Verona’s. We’ve found each other. You know?” 

Astra shook her head. 

Alex set her cup down. “Soulmates?” 

“What?” 

Alex groaned. “Oh boy. Okay. So, some people have a person that they’re literally bound to, at the soul level. The theory is that everyone’s got a soulmate, but only maybe 25% of people actually find theirs. Wrong location, they never meet, whatever. But anyway, once you meet your soulmate, or more specifically, once you touch them, it activates the bond. It becomes physically painful for you to be apart. Most people, once they find their person, they kind of build their lives around being able to be together constantly.” 

Astra absorbed this. “And what did you call it? Verona’s?”

“Verona’s. Yeah. Verona’s Ache. That’s the pain that you get when you’re apart from your soulmate. The further apart you are, usually, the worse it gets.” 

“Who is Verona?” 

Alex chuckled. “Verona isn’t a who, it’s a where. There’s a famous love story, Romeo and Juliet, about two lovers drawn to each other against all odds, and it’s set in the city of Verona.” 

Astra considered her for a moment. “We had no such phenomenon on Krypton that I was aware of.” 

Alex nodded. “That’s not surprising. A genetically planned society, pairings aren’t left to chance. I can see where you might not have needed to develop it.” 

“But…. Kara has a… a soulmate, does she not?” 

Alex nodded. “Yes. I imagine that a lot more Kryptonians do than ever discover them. But who knows? Kara literally had to travel light years to find hers, so…” She shrugged. 

Astra looked at her again. “And so, you and I are…” 

“Yep. So it would appear.” 

Astra thought. “And if one of us were to simply kill the other?” 

Alex smiled wryly. “Not recommended. Lifetime of agony, completely untreatable.”

Astra shook her head. “This is inconvenient for both of us. I am married. We are enemies. I had not ever foreseen myself ...pairing with a…” She paused, awkwardly trying to find a word. “...a human. A human woman, no less.” 

Alex nodded. “Oh yeah, inconvenient. You have a gift for understatement, General. I can’t tell you what my boss would say about me drinking tea in my underwear with the alien who tried to kill me a few days ago.” 

Astra looked at her archly for a moment. “And I cannot tell you what my husband would say about me sitting with the human I tried to kill drinking tea in her underwear either, so my position is not better than yours.” 

An uncomfortable silence followed, but then Astra looked at her with a lost look, so far opposite the look they had shared the first time they’d met. “What do we do now?” 

Alex thought for a minute. “Well, I don’t want to go back to being in pain any more than you do…” 

“Yes?” 

“...but there’s nothing that says we  _ have _ to be...you know…” Alex flushed a little. 

“Lovers?” 

“Yeah, that. I mean, we can just… as long as we stay in proximity, we’re good.” 

Astra looked dubious. “How are we to achieve that?” 

Alex thought for a moment. Liu was right. Once the pain was relieved, one became very motivated to not go back to feeling it. No hurdle seemed insurmountable, no plan too crazy. She grinned suddenly, and looked at her not-entirely-willing partner in what had become a joint problem. “Easy. You take me prisoner.”


	2. Chapter 2

_ “Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! _

_ It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night _

_ Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear, _

_ Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.” _

_ –Romeo & Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5 _

  
  


The human’s name was Alexandra. Astra liked the sound of it. It was a good warrior’s name. However, she told Astra that she preferred to be called Alex. Astra found the diminutive charming in its way, but “Alexandra” captured her imagination somehow.

The human –Alex– had changed into some fresh black tactical gear, and they stood on the roof of her building. She had her left sleeve pulled up to accommodate the hard cast on her arm. “What is that?”

“I have to keep my arm in this for six weeks because we, you know, tried to kill each other.” 

Astra flushed. This human who she had barely just met was taking a ridiculous risk simply to be in her presence. She sighed, and looked at her. Even with her bandages, she was a striking figure. “Are you certain about this?” 

Alex nodded. “I can’t imagine going back to that pain. Are  _ you _ sure about it?”

“No. But the alternatives are… unsavory.” 

Alex scoffed. “That’s for sure. Well, my life is in your hands, General.” She raised her arms. “Let’s go.” 

Astra stepped behind Alex and cleared her throat. “Forgive me,” she said, not really sure why. It felt strange to be so physical with someone she barely knew and had fought the last time they’d met. But she put her arms around Alex’s waist, and pulled her tight against her chest. They both gave a little gasp of surprise. 

Astra had been glad that sitting in the human’s presence had alleviated her pain. She had not expected that drawing the human close would fill her with a kind of warmth and well-being that she had not felt before, except perhaps in her youth when her sister still loved her, and her home still sparkled in space like a jewel. She felt Alex soften against her chest, melt back against her for a moment. 

“Oh,” Alex sighed. “I… um…” 

“We must go,” Astra whispered in her ear.

And so they rose into the air, Alex held tight against Astra’s body, and headed out toward Fort Rozz. Astra had no idea whether this was the worst idea she had ever taken part in or not, and she rather wished that she had never stroked the human’s cheek, because now her war was suddenly upended and everything she thought she’d known about herself was being challenged. She decided that for now, she would simply enjoy being suspended against the stars with winds in her hair and the human in her arms. If the plan was hairbrained, she decided, she did not want to know it now. 

The desert reeled by below them, and as they drew near to Fort Rozz, Astra felt a pang of anxiousness. Non was going to want to hurt Alex. 

As if feeling her thoughts, Alex turned her head and said over her shoulder, “So, I hope your husband isn’t the sadistic type.”

Astra gripped her tighter. “I will keep you safe.” 

Alex gave her a wry half-smile. “Thanks.” 

Trust required courage. Alex had it in abundance. Astra regretted that there was no better way than this.   
  


*****

  
  


Alex knew full well that this was a foolhardy idea. Astra had said that she had no intention of abandoning her plans, but Alex had at least gotten her to explain what Myriad was on the flight out to Fort Rozz: a wide-dispersal computer code that took control of humanity’s minds and forced them to work together for the good of the planet. 

Alex had frowned. “You know I can’t let you do that.” 

Astra hmphed. “If you have a better solution for saving this world, I will entertain it.” 

Alex had discussed her plans with J’onn and her sister before embarking on this madness. They both hated it. But they had no choice but to trust her, since she made clear that she would be doing this with or without their approval. 

They touched down in the desert, and Astra released her, and said with some reluctance, “I am going to have to put handcuffs on you now.” 

Alex glanced over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t you buy me a drink first?” 

Astra looked perplexed but seemed to decide it wasn’t worth pursuing the joke. Alex cooperatively placed her hands together behind her back, and Astra clicked a set of cold, metallic cuffs into place. She came around in front of Alex then, looking at her without saying anything for a moment. Alex saw a softness in her look, and recalled that she had seen in on their first meeting too. 

Finally, Astra spoke. “Time to go in. Try not to swagger too much.” 

Alex snorted, and let herself be led in. 

  
  
  


******

  
  


Alex blocked out the rowdy yells of the thugs lining the corridors as Astra led her, in cuffs, to a tiny cell in the bowels of Fort Rozz. The lighting flickered and electrical systems sizzled and popped as they walked; she could hear that, even over the shouts. The Fort had been on Earth for too long and was falling into disrepair. 

A heavy, clawed hand reached out and scratched at Alex’s cast, “Better save some for me, General, I’m hungry!” 

Astra wheeled around on him, her eyes glowing with heat. “She is to remain alive, and  _ unspoiled _ . She is no good to us as bait if she is dead or damaged.” 

Non was waiting by the cell entrance, smirking at her. “You caught the human who injured you, General?” 

Astra’s tone was imperious and cool. “Of course. I could not let such an injury go unanswered.” 

Alex saw the arrogance on his face. She wondered if he was capable of the kind of softness she’d seen on Astra’s, twice now. “I look forward to visiting retribution.” He tilted his head then, inspecting her cast. “Although, it looks as if you have already done so?” 

“Of course. But I will also contact her people and use her to draw them out.” 

He looked pleased. “I told you that you would find a way to deal with that troublesome niece of yours. Of course you do not wish to hurt your flesh and blood. But this one, if it comes to it?” 

Astra’s tone was menacing as she unlocked Alex’s cuffs and pushed her into the cell. “If it comes to it,” she purred at Non, “she is expendable.” 

She set a multi-encrypted lock on the cell door and turned to the flotsam and jetsam who had showed up to watch her parade Alex into the cell. “This is not a circus!” She turned her a fearsome gaze on all of them. “I know you all have duties now because I assigned them to you myself.” 

They dispersed, muttering amongst themselves. 

Non paused to peer into her cell. “We will get what we need from you,” he said coldly. “And then, perhaps we will get some entertainment as well.” 

Alex glowered at him but said nothing. 

He chuckled. “So, will you torture her?” 

Astra smiled. “She is only a cowardly human, I doubt I’ll need to.” Astra turned and looked in at Alex. “You’ll tell us the location of your base, won’t you, human? And the frequencies needed to contact your superiors?” 

Alex knew Astra had no intention of hurting her, but she wasn’t sure how much of this captivity was genuine. She gave them both a smoldering look and said, in as tough a posture as she could manage, “I’m not giving you anything.” 

Astra continued smiling. “Let’s leave her to contemplate her situation for a while. And then we shall see what she is ready to give us.” 

Non nodded and walked away. 

Astra released the door force field and entered the cell. She drew close to Alex. “I am sorry that was necessary,” she whispered. 

“And you were worried about  _ me _ swaggering too much,” Alex whispered back. 

But it felt good to have Astra very close to her again. 

“Wife?” Non’s voice drifted from down the hall. 

Astra glanced over her shoulder, swore under her breath in Kryptonese, and then placed a hand around Alex’s throat. She pushed her as gently as she could back against the wall. “Just remember, human,” she said a bit too loudly, “that I can break you like a twig if I wish it.” She released her grip again and looked at her apologetically. “Sorry,” she whispered. 

The whole thing was so bizarre, frightening and yet? Her hand had been comforting. The connection of skin had been soothing. Alex shrugged and nodded Astra off with her chin. She watched her disappear out the door and sat for a while, staring at the gold static of force field containing her within.

  
  


******

  
  


“How did you locate her?” Non asked later on, as they were preparing for lights out. 

Astra shrugged. “I went back to the location of the fight and tracked her. Her vehicle left a great deal of discharge. It was quite easy.” 

Non made a little disdainful grunt. “Fossil fuels, still. Dark ages.” 

Astra cleared her throat. It wasn’t that he was wrong, exactly. “And she is apparently very close with my niece. So we will be able to use her to effectively neutralize any opposition from her.” 

Non nodded his approval. “Clever.” 

Astra sat reclined on her pallet with a tablet in hand, searching for the play that Alex had mentioned, “Romeo and Juliet.” She located it with little effort, and read the opening lines of the prologue: 

_ Two households, both alike in dignity, _

_ In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, _

_ From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, _

_ Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. _

Astra knew little of the House of Danvers, but if Alex was any representative, she mused, they were probably noble, as her own had been. 

Distracted by the thought of “fair Verona”, she quickly searched for images of the place after locating it on a map. It was on a separate continent entirely. It revealed itself to be a part of this Earth that treasured its old architecture, loved its colors of terra cotta and red and pale yellows, preferring them to the colorless glass of the cities and modernity. 

Astra wondered if she would have time to visit that part of the world when she was done saving it.

“Tourism?” Non inquired dryly, peering over her shoulder.

She shrugged. “I wanted to get a look at this world we are saving.”

“Hm,” was all he said. 

Astra could feel the distance between herself and Alex. Though she was not in pain as she had been, she was aware of a mild discomfort, something she might simply mistake for anxiousness if she didn’t know better. 

“So when will you go and question her?”

Astra glanced up at him, doing her best to appear disinterested. “When I bring her something to eat, I imagine. When we wake.”

He nodded, and began stripping down to his undergarments, which was how he preferred to sleep. She sat awake in her pallet, gazing for a long while at his pale, slumbering shape. When he fell into a deep snore, the anxiousness overtook her and she left to go back down to Alex’s cell. 

She found herself at once relieved to be in the human’s presence again. She found her awake and singing to herself in a soft pleasant voice: 

_ “And I cant make you love me, if you don’t  _

_ And I can’t make your heart feel something it won’t  _

_ Here in the darkness, in these final hours _

_ I will lay down my heart…” _

As if feeling Astra’s proximity, Alex stopped singing and looked up. 

“Alex…” She was unsure what to even say. “What was that song?” 

Alex shrugged. “Just a song I like. A love song. You know.” 

“You sing well.” Astra felt that it sounded awkward. 

Alex smirked at her. “So? Whaddya want?” 

Astra shook her head. “I would not be able to sleep until I saw you again.” 

Alex’s posture seemed to relax. “I’m glad.” She tilted her head to one side a little, gazing at Astra. “Did you ever think that maybe we’d welcome your help if you weren’t trying to force it on us?” 

Astra clasped her hands behind her back. “I have seen little to suggest that it would be so.” 

Alex nodded. “Well, I see your point. But nevertheless. You didn’t try.” 

Alex was a sharp, bright thing, constant as a star. Unwavering. Astra didn’t speak for a long moment as she took in her face, the intelligence in her gaze. “Tell me about your family.” 

Alex chuckled. “My father and mother are scientists. Excellent ones, actually. My father… well, my father died protecting an alien. He defied orders to defend the life of a Martian man, stranded on Earth.” 

It was interesting that her family had chosen to stand with non-humans to the point of giving their own lives to save them. “That must be where you get your recklessness from.” 

Alex gave her a knowing look. “Maybe. My parents raised Kara too, so I guess that’s where she gets hers.” She looked at Astra, smirking a little. “So what’s your excuse?” 

Astra wanted to laugh, but all that moved in her chest was a little warmth, a wave that came and went. “I was...a mistake. Twins are not supposed to happen. I suppose I was daring death to take me. I still am, I think.” 

A seriousness settled in the stillness between them. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know,” Alex said softly. 

Astra gave her a pained look. “How else could it be?” 

Alex said nothing. She just smiled. A moment went by. “So, will Non come with you tomorrow when you torture me?” 

Astra nodded. “Probably.” 

“Don’t worry. I’ll make it look good.” Alex winked. 

Astra noticed that her skin tingled faintly as she stood looking at the human. “I would like to open this cell.” 

“I’d like that too.” 

Astra glanced around. After a moment, she opened the door, stepped inside, and took Alex’s hand in hers. She stood for a minute, staring at her. There was no denying that where their skin came into contact, a moment of sweet contentment followed. She closed her eyes, gently squeezing the hand, feeling all its delicate bones and fibrous muscles. 

“It feels good,” she whispered. She opened her eyes. 

“Yeah,” Alex whispered back.

Astra’s heart was filled with doubts as she stood here with the human’s hand in hers. The one fact that was incontrovertible, though, was that standing here holding that hand felt infinitely more correct than anything that she had done in recent memory. 


	3. Chapter 3

Astra came the next morning and came into the cell, Non in her wake. She yanked Alex up off the pallet and to her feet, glared rather convincingly into her face, and said through clenched teeth, “Have you thought about what I told you last night?” 

Alex gasped a little to be pulled so unceremoniously out of her dreaming, but she was here, and being held in her grip, and… it was a little confusing. 

She blinked, looked at Astra blankly for a moment. 

“Will you give us the frequency with which to contact your superiors?” 

Alex glared at her. “Hell no.”

Astra shoved her against the wall of the cell. “Then,” she growled, “I will start breaking more of your bones, and I promise you, they will be ones that you are fond of.” 

Alex felt in her gut that Astra had no intention of hurting her, so she gasped, “Alright, alright.” She rattled off a string of numbers, adding, “But you can’t track them that way, it’s de-located, just so you know.” 

Astra glanced back at Non. He shrugged. “Fine.” 

Astra released her and stepped back, looking her over. “Go and contact her people. Tell them they must turn over Supergirl or the human suffers.” 

“It will be done,” Non replied, seeming disappointed that it had been too easy. He walked away to execute her orders.

Astra put her hands on her hips. “I hope you will put up a bit more resistance when I demand the location of your base.” 

Alex shook her head. “I don’t want to get hurt.” 

“You are already hurt.”

“Well, I don’t want to get hurt more!” She sighed, and sat down.

“This is a foolish plan,” Astra scolded, but Alex could see the concern and hesitation in her eyes. 

“There’s no better one.” She locked eyes with the general for a moment, attempting to read her. “You know, I worry that you’re still on the edge about this whole thing. That you’ll cleave to your duty and just doom yourself to the agony that comes with it.” 

Little creases appeared around Astra’s eyes. She sat down beside Alex, and held silent for a long moment. “I do not know what to do with you, you are correct in that. And you have read me correctly, in that my duty comes before most things for me. I feel that in you as well.” 

“Maybe that’s why we’re soulmates,” Alex said wryly, not even sure whether she meant it. 

Another long silence fell. “The irony is rather cruel.” 

“Maybe,” Alex mused, “it doesn’t have to be.”

“Our duties are at cross purposes,” Astra said glumly. 

“You’re intelligent,” Alex said flatly. “Think of a way to make them otherwise.” 

Astra frowned. 

“Why did you build Myriad?” Alex pressed. 

“To make the people of the world work together for its common survival.” 

“Well, Kara does that without mentally enslaving people. By inspiring hearts and minds.” 

“That takes too long.” 

Alex chuckled. She looked at Astra, and found Astra gazing at her, looking slightly lost. An awkward smile passed between them. Astra took her hand again, gently, and held it, looking at it like a curiosity. 

“You’re the type to sacrifice, I know you are,” Alex sighed. “But even if we don’t become lovers, we have to create a peace so that we can be near each other. Non isn’t–”

“Non is my husband in name only.” 

Alex’s mouth snapped shut. “Alright, then.” 

“It feels pleasant to touch you.” 

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “Even when you’re throwing me up against a wall.” 

They both paused at that, and instantly flushed. Alex knew that Astra must be, as she was, picturing throwing Alex up against a wall in a very different manner. 

Looking into those haunted eyes, Alex felt overwhelmed with the desire to love Astra. She looked away. “When I was young, my dad always used to say to me that the just thing isn’t always the right thing. Sometimes the rules are better off broken. It was meant to be a critical thinking exercise. In your mind, I know that Myriad is a just thing. But that doesn’t make it the right thing. Think about it. If it’s war, then you know everyone loses.” She looked back again. “Maybe you ought to give your people a chance to avoid that.” 

Astra’s face betrayed grief and frustration. “Maybe,” she whispered. 

“You should get back to Non before he starts wondering,” Alex said quietly. She didn’t want Astra to go, but she knew it was the practical thing to do. 

“Let him wonder.” 

Astra rubbed her thumb over the back of Alex’s hand for a minute, and they dwelled in that moment of contact. Then she withdrew her hand and stood. “I will go.” 

“Think about it,” Alex pleaded. 

**

Non was staring at some maps when Astra came into the war room. 

“Did you send the message to her people?” 

“Yes. I gave them 48 hours to respond.” 

She nodded her approval. A long quiet fell as she sat down in another chair and began idly swiping through images of Earth on her tablet. Verona had led her to Rome, and Rome had led her to Michelangelo, and DaVinci, and that had led her to Ficino and the human philosophy of the soul. These were not such simple, stupid creatures after all. She had wondered whether Alex was simply exceptional, but the evidence was piling up. 

“Husband?”

“Hm?” 

“Do you ever wonder if we are underestimating the humans?” 

“Tactically?” 

“No. In general.” 

He snorted. “I cannot imagine why you would ask me such a thing. Even if they were as physically strong as we are, they are a broadly inferior culture.” 

“Yes, but centuries ago, was Krypton so different? Is our only advantage over them simply longevity?”

Non shook his head. “You’ve spent too much time around that human.” 

“She is exceptional for her species,” Astra rejoined, feeling defensive. 

“Perhaps. All the more reason then, why the rest of them have to be taken in hand. You cannot use one mildly interesting human as an excuse to not discipline the rest of the lot like the children they are.” 

His arrogance suddenly bothered her. She, who had been taught by mentors and generals to project the same arrogance, was suddenly put off by the idea that he was so dismissive of the humans and ready to grind them under his boot heel. 

He turned to her. “Besides, wife. This is your plan, not mine. Do not tell me you are doubting it now.” 

She sighed. “No, I suppose it does not matter why they are inferior to us, it only matters that they are.” 

He nodded. 

  
  


*

  
  


Still, Astra found herself back down in the cell not long after that. She sat with Alex for an hour, wanting to know about Michelangelo and wanting to know all of the places on Earth that Alex had been to and what she thought of them. She wanted to know  _ Alex _ , who seemed so brave and beautiful and kind. 

“Alright,” Alex cut in after they’d been talking a while, “I have questions about Kara and her childhood.” 

“Alright. Ask.” 

So Alex grilled her extensively: what was Kara’s favorite food, what had she been afraid of, what had her favorite song been, where did she most like to go on Krypton? Astra was filled with memories of when Kara had been young, and sighed, “I was gone so frequently on campaign, but every moment with her was precious.

Alex chuckled. “You’re so funny.”

“Funny?”

“Yeah. You throw off these proud, distant vibes, but then…” She smiled faintly, peering at her as if through a mist. “Sometimes I see this softness, this gentleness. It just strikes me as funny. It’s like…” 

“...like I was taught not to show that side of myself?” Astra shook her head. “War is hard. Prison is hard. There is no room for gentleness in such places.” 

Alex stared at her. “But there is with me.” 

Astra flushed and turned away. 

“You know I’m right,” Alex pressed. “Before you even knew what we were to each other, you knew you could show that softness to me.” 

Astra stood up. “Much as I cannot bear to be away from you, I cannot bear being with you either.” She looked at the human, her warm, dark eyes, her bravery and vulnerability and the intelligence of her words gripped Astra’s heart. It was too much, all at once. “I must…” She breathed deeply. “...I must think.” 

***

  
  


Alex spent much of that day in isolation, wondering if all the seeds that she had laid down would grow and bear fruit in the ways she hoped. She saw Astra’s sudden need to get up and leave as proof that she had indeed struck a nerve, had read correctly that Astra’s tendency toward self sacrifice was strong. Alex knew persuasion had to be stronger. 

With no day and night in the cell, she had no idea how long had passed, but her stomach was grumbling by the time Non arrived with some tasteless Fort Rozz rations. He lowered the force field and set the plate down on the floor on the other side of the doorjamb. “Here,” he said smugly, “come get it.” 

She looked at him with poison in her eyes. “I don’t think so.” 

“You only have to reach out and take it,” he encouraged her. 

“So you can claim I was attempting escape and kill me? I’ll pass.” 

He chuckled. “My wife was right. You are … not a complete fool.” He entered the cell. “Well, I suppose it was inevitable. She was always more given to sentiment than I.” 

Alex felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. This would lead nowhere good. 

“So what have you said to her, Human? How have you managed to manipulate her into thinking you are an… ‘exceptional’ human?” 

Alex shrugged. “I’m like any other human.” 

But Non shook his head, and stalked a little closer. “No, I don’t think you are. We have been watching humans for ten of your years. I have occasionally see her develop a passing curiosity about one here or there, but she has never referred to any human as ‘exceptional’. So? What is it, I wonder, that makes you so?” 

Alex backed up. “Maybe you should ask her.” 

Non moved closer. “I want you to tell me. How did you play on her emotions?” 

He was standing in her space now, menacing her, and there was nowhere left for her to go. She thrust her chin at him, daring him to strike her. “Maybe she just never met someone who had feelings before.” 

He sneered. “Such useless things. You humans are full of them.” He placed a hand around her throat and smiled, not squeezing -- yet. “But what good have they done you?” 

She stared defiantly at him. “Well, for one thing, they help me to know an asshole when I see one.” 

He shoved her against the back wall, not hard, but hard enough to knock her head against it. It hurt. “Insults. How childish.” 

She straightened herself up. “Insults are abusive. I’m just stating facts.” 

He wrapped his hand around her throat and this time, was less gentle. “Give me the coordinates of your base.” 

Her air flow was not really sufficient. She struggled to breathe. “F-fuck you,” she managed. 

He squeezed tighter. “I am not waiting for your people to respond to my demands. I am going to kill them now. If my wife wishes to keep you as a pet–” He squeezed her throat tighter still. She felt her pulse hammer against his fingers. “–so be it, I suppose. But you will give me the coordinates of your base, and we will finish this absurd game and enact our plan.” 

The edges of her consciousness were getting black and her head was throbbing. “I’m not giving you shit,” she wheezed. 

He pinned her against the wall now, leaning close to her face, growling, “You will give me everything, or I will make you feel kinds of pain that you cannot even imagine.” 

Those stars pinged across her vision as he continued to hold her throat, slowly choking off her air. 

And then suddenly, the pressure realized. She gasped a deep gasp and air rushed into her lungs. She swooned a little for a moment, and immediately crouched into a wobbly fighting stance. But she saw, just outside the cell door, Astra, standing over Non, her foot on his throat. 

“What part of alive and unspoiled did you not understand?” she demanded. 

As smug as ever, he smiled at her. “General, I meant no harm. I was only seeking information.” 

“If you seek it that way again, I will not be so gentle.” 

“Wife, listen to me. There is no point to this little pantomime. Keep the human as a pet if you must, but let us destroy her people’s base and remove the last obstacle to our supremacy on this earth.” 

Alex saw the pleading way he looked at her, knew that this was the tone he struck when he wanted to incline her to his will. Astra turned and looked at Alex. 

“You will be spared,” she promised. “But you must give me the coordinates.” 

  
  


*

  
  


They soared over the desert, the full Fort Rozz cohort. Alex was held pressed against Astra’s chest. Astra liked the feel of the human in her arms. She prayed that this would go to plan, and then she would have it all. 

“There,” Alex called out, shouting into the headset that Non had strapped to her head. “Do you see it?” 

In the red sand below, Astra was able to see a small depression in the desert that led down to what was the doorway to a below ground bunker. “It is not very well hidden,” she commented. 

“Sure it is, if you don’t know what you’re looking for,” Alex replied. 

Astra looked at Non. “You and the men shall enter. I will remain here with the human to deal with any incoming resistance. Just in case the human is clever enough to have warned her people somehow.” 

Non nodded. “Good. Then she will watch the signs of destruction from within.” 

Astra felt Alex squirming in her arms. “Stop it,” she murmured into her ear. 

Alex fell still. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. 

Astra was sure. 

She watched Non and the others descend to the depression in the sand, and then disappear under an overhang. A moment later, his voice was in her ear: “Tell your human to give us the entry code.” 

“Alex, what is the sequence to enter the door?” 

Alex rattled off the numbers. Astra repeated them. A moment later, she heard one of the other men mutter, “General, we’re in.” 

She held still in the air, hovering in the cool, still sky, waiting for the sounds she knew were coming: the deep, bottomless, heavy sound of a five foot thick metal bunker door slamming shut. 

“What was that?” she heard Non mutter. 

“Sounded like the bunker door closing,” said one of the others. 

“Maybe it’s on automatic close,” one of them said. 

A few minutes passed, and then Non’s voice came again: “General, there is no-one here. We are working room by room but I see no evidence of the presence of any humans.” 

Astra held her silence for a moment. “Yes, and you would have known that simply by listening before you went underground.” 

“What?” 

“Their hearts. You are in an empty bunker because you never once listened to their hearts.” 

Another long pause followed, in which heavy breathing ensued. His voice came again: “BRING THE HUMAN DOWN HERE AND OPEN THE DOOR.” 

“No, husband.” 

“What?!”

“No.” 

“Then we will break it open and I will have my way with you AND the human.” 

“You will not.” 

“What?!?”

“You will not. That bunker is long abandoned, but it was designed to contain prisoners with Kryptonian skills. The walls and floor are threaded with Kryptonite and the bunker door is made of lead. You are not going anywhere.” 

“BUT WHY?” 

“Because they are a culture worth saving. And your arrogance will never permit you to see that.” 

She tore out the earpiece and tossed it, watching it spin in little circles as it fell.


	4. Chapter 4

_ “So, I hope you’re both sitting down,” Alex had said into the phone.  _

_ She had conferenced Hank and Kara in, and was apprising them of the situation: that Astra had arrived at her window and that her severe case of Verona’s had immediately vanished.  _

_ “Are you sure?” Kara had asked.  _

_ “This is extremely inconvenient,” Hank had grumbled.  _

_ “Well, yes, but…” Alex had glanced at the woman sitting across the coffee table from her. “...maybe it’s not.”  _

_ “You sound like you have a plan,” Hank said, in that tone that said he probably already didn’t like whatever it was.  _

_ “I do, actually. Did we demolish DelCo Base?” It was the DEO’s original location, buried far deeper out in the desert, before the government had decided that they wanted the DEO West base a little more accessible to civilization. Last Alex had been aware, it had simply been sealed up and abandoned.  _

_ “No,” Hank said, “we just sealed it up.”  _

_ Alex thought for a moment. “How long do you think it would take to get it operational again?”  _

_ Hank cleared his throat. “Just what do you have in mind?”  _

_ Kara gasped. “Oh, I know what she has in mind.” She sighed. “Alex, has she agreed to this?”  _

_ “I’m working on that.”  _

_ “And in the meantime?” Hank asked.  _

_ “In the meantime, I’m going to let her bring me back to Fort Rozz as a prisoner.”  _

_ “No way!” Kara cried.  _

_ Hank grunted. “I’m with your sister on this. It’s a terrible idea.”  _

_ “Listen, if she stays here, Non will know there’s a problem pretty fast. If I go with her, it’ll let us play for time a little bit longer. I need that wiggle room, guys.”  _

_ “I hate it,” Kara said firmly.  _

_ “No way,” Hank concurred.  _

_ “Guys,” Alex said calmly. “I don’t think you’re hearing me. This is what’s happening. Astra has to go back or it brings war immediately instead of later. And I’m going back with her, because I need the time to make it all work.”  _

_ A long silence followed. “Twenty four hours,” Hank said finally. “I can be operational in twenty four hours.” _   
  


_ *** _

  
  


_ A little while after her sudden departure after Alex had challenged Astra’s commitment to Myriad, Astra had returned to Alex’s cell and entered it.  _

_ “Tell me,” she whispered, “what is DelCo base? What is your plan?”  _

_ “It’s defunct now. But it was designed to neutralize and contain Kryptonian threats after the appearance of Zod and his people a decade ago.”  _

_ Astra looked at her with anxious eyes. “And you want to lead my husband and my men into a trap, yes?”  _

_ Alex nodded. She could still feel Non’s fingers closing around her throat. She looked at Astra. “You don’t need to kill them. But there’s a reason those guys were in prison.”  _

_ Astra’s chin trembled a little. “I was in prison too, Alex.”  _

_ “I know. I’m sure my mother won’t be thrilled that I’m soulmates with an ex convict. But I know you had reasons for what you did, and I know that you’ve come to realize that your plan, what you wanted to do to save us, it isn’t right. We can find another way.” She grasped Astra’s hand and took a moment to savor the connection. “Will you? Please?”  _

_ Astra looked at her; this brave, strong, insightful human. She looked down at their hands, tangled together. “He will come and question you for your base location. You will give him the location of DelCo Base. How will your people know to seal them in?” _

_ “I trust my commanding officer to handle that end of it. How will you get them to go in without you?”  _

_ “Let me worry about that.” _

  
  


**

  
  


Over the next few weeks, Alex remained on medical leave in her apartment, and Astra remained with her, anxiously attending to her needs and offering to fetch her everything she needed. “Stop fussing,” Alex complained, but secretly, she enjoyed it. 

Kara came to visit frequently, slightly awkward at the new dynamic that had been introduced into their lives. “So… are you guys… getting along?” 

Alex rolled her eyes. “Yes, Kara. We’re getting along.” 

Astra gave Alex a wry look. “She is asking if we are lovers.” 

Kara flushed. “Look, it’s not my business, I know, I just… you know… soulmates…?” 

Alex put her feet up on the coffee table. “Yeah yeah, I know. Look, it’s just... we’re just staying together because it’s better for us to be around each other than not. When there’s something to report, I’ll tell you,” she promised. 

Kara seemed momentarily satisfied with this. 

“You left a lot out,” Astra observed after Kara left. 

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain the way things are.” 

‘The way things are’ meant: long days of talking, reading together, always in close proximity, sometimes leaning on each other, which was so pleasant and warm. Alex introducing Astra to movies, music, ordering delivery from six different restaurants to let Astra try all the foods she liked (she discovered she was partial to Chinese dumplings). 

After a week of Astra sleeping on the sofa, Alex found herself lying awake. “Hey Astra?” she called.

“Yes, Brave One?”

Alex liked being called that. “You don’t need to sleep out there. I’m sure you’d be much more comfortable in here.” 

So Astra came into the bedroom, and lay down beside her in the bed. After a moment of laying awkwardly on her back, staring at the ceiling, Astra slid closer, curled herself around Alex, and they were sleeping within minutes, their soft breathing synchronizing in the dark. 

Over the next several nights, they fell into the routine of sleeping beside each other, automatically spooning, staring with Astra as big spoon, and then turning over to make Alex big spoon for a while. Alex could not recall when she had slept better than this. 

One night, Alex woke in the middle of the night, curled in the little spoon position, and could feel Astra was propped up on one elbow, looking at her. 

Alex yawned. “What’s up?” 

Astra hesitated. “I was enjoying watching you sleep,” she admitted. 

Alex chuckled and rolled onto her back. “Oh yeah?” 

Astra nodded. “It pleases me to see you peaceful.” 

Alex smiled, and reached up with her good hand and tucked one of Astra’s long curls behind her ear. “You know, you look less haunted, lately.” 

Astra smiled faintly, as if it was still something she wasn’t quite used to doing. “I do feel better.” 

They looked at each other, softly illuminated in moonlight. 

“Sleeping beside you is surprisingly comfortable.” 

Alex smiled. “I like it. You’re so warm.” 

Astra leaned down, and settled her mouth gently against Alex’s. “So are you.” 

Alex pulled her in again, and opened her mouth softly against Astra’s, letting them touch and explore in a sweet, tentative kiss. It was like a puzzle piece dropping into place. 

Astra pulled back and smiled at her. “Was that satisfactory?”

Alex snorted. “It was better than satisfactory. Do it again.” 

They kissed again, and it slowly deepened and became less shy, more sure, though still gentle. Astra had such gentleness in her soul, something that Alex knew would surprise people who didn’t really know her. It was amazing how she could feel Astra’s soul in these sweet, easy kisses. 

They stopped, smiling at each other, their faces close enough to feel each other’s breath on their lips. 

“Do you want to be closer?” Alex whispered. 

Astra nodded vigorously. “Very much, yes.” 

Astra disengaged from their embrace, and rolled onto her back, pulling the tank top she was wearing up over her head. She paused to carefully fold it before setting it on the nightstand. Alex chuckled. 

“What is so amusing?”

“Nothing.” Alex took a moment to look at her; she was an impressive figure, with her broad shoulders, strong arms, firm breasts, and the smooth, flawless skin that came with Kryptonian regenerative powers. “You’re amazing,” she murmured. She held her arm up, that one that still bore the cast. “Can you give me a hand?” 

“Of course.” Astra sat up, and took hold of Alex’s soft sleeper t-shirt, and drew it up her body and then over her head, stopping to maneuver the one sleeve over the cast. Again, she paused to carefully fold the shirt before setting it aside. 

“Why do you do that?” Alex wondered with amusement. 

“What?”

“Fold your clothes when you take them off?”

Astra seemed bewildered. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Alex shook her head. “I don’t know.” She had shifted onto her back to help Astra with getting the shirt off. They held still and gazed at each other for a moment. 

Then Astra tentatively fingered Alex’s pajama waistband. “May I remove these?” 

Alex nodded. She wanted to know what it felt like to be as close as they could be. She arched her hips up off the mattress and let Astra slide the flannel pajama pants off her, and then watched her fold them and lay them aside. Somehow, it was a charming habit, as though this moment was important to her and she wanted it perfect. 

Though Alex was aware of the glow of sexual desire, she felt something else as she watched Astra slip out of her own pajama pants, folding them, and laying them aside. Their eyes were locked in the low light and the anticipation was thick enough to cut. 

“I want to know all of you,” Astra whispered. 

“Yes,” Alex agreed, and she opened her arms to invite Astra to lay her body on top of her. 

Astra extended herself, and carefully lowered herself on top of Alex. 

“Don’t worry,” Alex whispered, “you won’t break me.” 

They both chuckled, and then as Astra’s naked skin settled against hers, they both inhaled sharply at the feeling that overwhelmed them: contentment, joy, a high to compete with all other highs. Alex moaned quietly. Astra moaned back in agreement. They held still in the moment, basking in the magic of this intimacy. Her heart felt full. “Oh my god,” she whispered, “I didn’t know it could feel this good.” 

Astra kissed her once, softly. “I did not know  _ anything _ could feel this good.”

“It almost makes sex seem redundant,” Alex teased. 

Astra’s mouth twitched with amusement, and her eyes danced. “Almost.” 

Alex wrapped her arms around Astra’s ribcage, and they shifted against each other until their thighs were tangled. Everything about Astra’s scent, the softness of her skin, the hardness of her muscles, felt like exactly what Alex had spent her life needing. She lifted her head and pushed into another soft kiss, mumbling, “I want more of this.” 

“Mm,” Astra agreed. 

Alex wasn’t even aware of exactly when she started moving her hips, but found, after several minutes of deep, gentle kisses, their tongues probing and tasting and exploring each other’s mouths, that they were moving against each other, the rhythm of their hips moving in perfect time with each other, as perfect as the ebb and flow of a tide. It felt like they were melting into each other. 

“Your body feels like home,” Astra sighed against her mouth. 

Alex moaned. “I need this,” she panted, her breath becoming shallower. 

“Yes,” Astra agreed. 

“I need it, forever.” It felt reckless, saying it, but Alex couldn’t imagine living without being able to feel this. “I feel whole.” 

Astra groaned. “Yes!” 

Soul and sex became the same thing, and Alex wanted both in equal measure. “I want you inside me,” she moaned, her body twisting against Astra’s. 

Astra reached down, and slid a finger into her soft, wet sex. It felt like completion. She could feel herself relax to welcome it, and then tighten again to hold in inside her. 

“Is this what you want?” Astra murmured. 

“God, yes,” Alex groaned. She drew one knee up to her chest to open herself all the way, to give Astra as much of herself as she could. When she felt a second finger slide in, she wept. “I want all of this,” she whimpered, “all of you, next to me, tangled up in me, inside me, forever,” she moaned, rocking herself against Astra’s deep, strong touch. 

Astra kissed her mouth, pushing her tongue deep into it. Alex knew it meant yes. It meant,  _ I am yours, you are mine, this is ordained, we are one, you have me, forever, forever.  _

And Alex kissed back, opening herself in every way possible, and she knew that Astra understood that it meant,  _ yes, yes, this is everything, you are everything, thank you, thank you, thank you.  _

They became a single soul, a single sex, breathing into and sustaining itself, two halves of a whole, finally joined. 

They reached orgasm together, full of laughter and cries of pleasure, slicking each other’s bodies with tears, sweat and sex. They held still for a long moment, allowing themselves to slowly dissolve back into being two again. 

It was at this moment that they noticed the rather distinctive sound of a downstairs neighbor banging on the ceiling with a broom. 

“What is that?” Astra asked, frowning. 

Alex laughed. “It’s the downstairs neighbor complaining. Our sex was too loud for her liking.” 

“She is just jealous.” 

They laughed. Alex had not seen Astra laugh until now. Her smile dazzled, her face lit up, her eyes sparkled. They held each other and laughed until they couldn’t breathe. 

And then Astra lifted herself off of Alex and, reluctantly withdrawing her fingers from between Alex’s legs, she remarked, “I was anxious to taste you, but perhaps we will save that for tomorrow.” 

Alex shivered at the thought. “Mm. I suppose that’s probably best.” 

Astra shifted her weight off of her and curled up next to her. “Does this mean we are lovers now?” 

Alex smiled, and kissed Astra’s forehead. “No. We’re not lovers. We’re soulmates.”


End file.
